Coal by 2030 will be the most widely used fuel worldwide as developing countries electrify burgeoning cities and rural areas where billions of people have had no or little access to power, according to the International Energy Agency. --Patrice Hill,
The Washington Times, 4 March 2013
The U.S., Europe and Japan may debate the merits of coal versus nuclear, natural gas, wind and other cleaner fuels, but for developing countries that have considerably less income and wealth to pay for power projects, those more-expensive sources of power are rarely realistic alternatives. For this vast swath of humanity, coal remains the main or only alternative to improve their lives with a reliable energy source. In China, coal fuels 80 percent of electric generation, and the country in the past five years has added more coal plants to its grid than the entire fleet of U.S. power generators. China’s appetite for coal is so voracious that it soon will consume more coal each year than the rest of the world combined, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. --Patrice Hill,
The Washington Times, 4 March 2013
Our civilization, pace Chesterton, is founded on coal, more completely than one realizes until one stops to think about it. The machines that keep us alive, and the machines that make machines, are all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal. In the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil. He is a sort of caryatid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported. --George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937
More than 1,000 coal-fired power plants are being planned worldwide, new research has revealed. The World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India. India is planning 455 new plants compared to 363 in China, which is seeing a slowdown in its coal investments after a vast building programme in the past decade. --Damian Carrington,
The Guardian, 20 November 2012
There’s a heck of a lot of fossil fuels in the world. Loads of it. In 2005 they found 3000 billion tons of the stuff near Norway. Yes, it is under water and nearly impossible to mine at present. But technology changes. Whenever it is desirable enough, we can send small robotic mining machines down to get it. So if world reserves are about 250 years worth, that makes it about 750 years more for a total of about 1000 years worth of coal. One can only wonder how much more coal is under the ground and water of the world. The bottom line is that we’re drowning in energy resources. We don’t run out for thousands of years, or never; depending on coal or uranium as the item of interest. --Musings from the
Chiefio, 8 March 2013
As always I read with interest each new posting on your most excellent website, particularly the criticism of the Malthusian mind set so dominant among those only capable of looking at this magnificent planet in finite terms… With man’s ability to make the desert bloom and build structures that adapt to climates considered hostile, huge regions could be opened to housing, manufacturing and agriculture. These are the challenges that we should be confronting with new generations of scientists, engineers, construction workers as well as artists and musicians, young and old, people who see the brilliant future of mankind and are willing to accept the risks that will be part and parcel of our reaching out as it has always been. –Krov Menuhin,
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 8 March 2013
The authors conclude that the decade 2000 – 2009 has not yet exceeded the warmest temperature of the Holocene. In fact 2000 – 2009 was warmer than 72% of the Holocene and that given the rate of warming seen throughout the 20th century, if it continued, temperatures would not exceed the maximum seen in the Holocene until 2100. Of course, another way to put this is that current temperatures are colder than 28% of the Holocene. According to this research the temperatures seen in the 20th century were about average for the Holocene. --David Whitehouse,
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 7 March 2013
